Fate of racial discrimination case in judge's hands

Published 10:40 pm, Sunday, November 1, 2009

Three months after a verdict against Greenwich in a racial discrimination case involving eight police officers, a judge will decide if a new trial is warranted.

U.S. District Court Judge Mark Kravitz will hear arguments from lawyers on both sides Monday in New Haven after the town filed a motion saying the jury was misguided and the verdict in favor of the officers is not valid.

It is not clear whether Kravitz will rule from the bench on Monday.

In July, the jury awarded five officers $157,000, finding that some had endured a hostile work environment and were held back from advancement within the police department beacause of race. The claims of three officers were denied.

Related Stories

It took several days of deliberation after the two-week trial for the jurors to come to their decision. Lawyers for the town claimed the verdict was "compromised," meaning jurors may have been split, but decided to award some of the officers money as a means to appease everybody.

Attorneys for the officers claimed the verdict was a victory and proved the town allowed pervasive racism to exist within the department.

In recently filed motions, both parties laid out their arguments. Lawyers for the town said the officers did not show there was racism in the department that the first selectman was aware of or deliberately ignored.

"No reasonable jury could have found misconduct so `manifest` as to establish the Town`s `constructive acquiescence` of intentional racial discrimination," wrote attorney Robert Mitchell.

Mitchell said the plaintiffs used "selective statistics" to show minorities did not receive promotions to specialized assignments and could only show isolated incidents of racism that the first selectman was never made aware of because the officers did not file formal complaints.

"Plaintiffs` evidence here was not of official departmental action directed at them, but often general comments broadcast in an impersonal manner to a locker room audience of non or lower level supervisors," states the motion.

However, attorney Lewis Chimes, the attorney for the eight officers, has argued there was more than enough evidence for the jury to come to their decision and that a judge does not have enough reason to set aside the verdict.

Chimes said the evidence showed there were less qualified white officers being promoted over minority officers repeatedly and that top town officials were aware of racial remarks being made by supervisors and failed to do anything about it.

"Multiple offenders had made discriminatory remarks in the presence of supervisory officers," wrote Chimes. "Neither the patrol officers nor the supervisory officers reported it or made any effort to prevent it."

Emmanuel Psarakis, professor of law at Quinnipiac University, said "The judge will look at if there is evidence of any kind to support the jury`s verdict, and if there aren`t any facts that were presented to the jury, that means the case cannot stand." Psarakis does not have any direct knowledge of the case.

"There is a giant difference between facts presented to a jury and lawyers` arguments," he said.

Psarakis, who specializes in discrimination law, said there is no way to know how a judge will rule, but if there was evidence presented to the jury that was disputed by a person, it is the jury`s call to decide who they found credible.

"If it was a question that some people alleged a hostile work environment and one person denied it, it`s up for a jury to decide whom to believe, not the judge."